Category Archives: Funding

Post navigation

As a child, Kayla Lau had an erratic, rapid heartbeat. Her heart would race for a short period of time and then correct itself. Doctors were challenged to pinpoint the cause because her episodes were so brief and unpredictable. When she was in sixth grade, she had an extended episode that landed her in the St. Joseph’s emergency room, and the cause was diagnosed. Kayla had been born with an extra electrode in her heart. Within a few weeks, she underwent surgery at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital.

As her parents, Philip and JoAnn, left the hospital after her surgery, reassured by her physician that Kayla’s problems had been eliminated, they saw a giving thermometer in the lobby marking the fundraising goal for the new Children’s Heart Center. The next day the couple gave a gift to name an examination room in the new center for their daughter. The Laus already had a soft spot for St. Joseph’s. Their second son, Andrew, was born two months premature, and during his first two years of life, they became intimately familiar with neonatal and pediatric care at St. Joseph’s. Philip Lau spends much of his time thinking about hospitals and hospital technology. His company, International Specialists, manufactures circuit boards and components for the medical industry as well as other industries. Philip’s two sons, Christopher and Andrew, have now joined him in the family business, which was founded by his father in 1971.

To relax, Philip plays golf or joins JoAnn at their beachfront condo in Pinellas County. The couple spends a few weeks in Hawaii each summer and takes periodic shorter trips to Chicago to get away. “We’re fortunate,” says JoAnn, who met Philip when she worked for his accountant nearly 30 years ago. “We have everything we want, and we want to share with others.”

A mother/baby room at St. Joseph’s Hospital-North is named for Philip and JoAnn Lau.

Jerry Archibald’s relationship with St. Joseph’s Hospital began in 1968 when a train hit his car at an unmarked railroad crossing in northern Hillsborough County. “I thought I was going to die,” Jerry recalls. “I could hardly breathe.” When he arrived at St. Joseph’s, “It was a great feeling seeing a nurse, and she said, ‘You’ll be okay.’” Over the years Jerry estimates he’s been in the St. Joseph’s emergency room more than a dozen times, including when his wife Suzie was cared for at the hospital after a severe car accident in 1980.

When the new St. Joseph’s Hospital-North opened, the Archibalds knew they wanted to give back to the institution that had always cared for them. It’s also part of a larger pattern in their lives. They like to help people directly, much like the way Jerry was helped when growing up as the son of a single mother in New Port Richey. “People there were always watching out for me,” he says, whether it was baskets of food during the holidays or jobs and small investment opportunities.

“I’ve been very fortunate in business,” says Jerry, who founded and sold three banks during his career. “You can’t just take in life. You have to give something back.” The Archibalds give back in another way, through their dog, Bailey, who was recently named one of America’s most loveable pets by the television show “Wheel of Fortune.” “Everyone is drawn to Bailey,” says Suzie of the Poodle/Shih-Tzu mix they adopted from the Humane Society of Tampa. Pet therapy is on the horizon for Bailey, but even more, she is an ambassador for the Humane Society. “I want to make sure everyone knows where she came from,” says Suzie. “There are real gems there.”

An ICU patient room at St. Joseph’s Hospital-North is named for Gerald and Suzie Archibald.

Elaine Shimberg found the lump in her breast in 1981. She’d had cysts before, but this one was different. It was small, and it hurt. She wanted a biopsy. Her doctor said they’d monitor the cyst, but Elaine insisted. “I’ve always been attuned to my body, and I said, ‘This one’s different.’” The subsequent biopsy confirmed her suspicion. Elaine had breast cancer. She was 44.

“I was frightened. My youngest child was 10. I wanted to see him, and his four siblings grow up. I was really concerned about leaving my children with them at such a young age.”

Elaine had a mastectomy and radiation at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Twenty-nine years later, she remains cancer-free, but memories of that time endure. To help other women who face breast cancer and to support the hospital she has come to love, Elaine and her husband, Hinks, gave the lead gift for the new Shimberg Breast Center at St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital.

Breast cancer is on the rise in this country. Today one in eight women will be diagnosed with the disease at some time in their life, up from one in 12 just a few decades ago. Research has yet to confirm the cause, but many speculate it’s environmental pollution. At the same time, the death rate is decreasing, primarily due to early detection and treatment. Cancers discovered at stage one, like Elaine’s (2 centimeters or less in size), are 99 percent curable. Sophisticated digital mammography machines make it possible to detect cancers as small as one centimeter, further increasing the survival rate after diagnosis.

The breast center at St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital has always focused on serving women whose regular mammogram revealed an abnormality, so long waits for services only prolong the anxiety of patients. “I don’t think any woman who finds a lump should have to wait to have it checked,” Elaine says, “and they shouldn’t have to wait to have it taken care of.”

The Shimbergs have been helping to educate women about breast cancer since 1978 when, through their charitable foundation, they produced a video for television on how to do breast self-examination. The controversial spot included the first image of a naked breast ever shown on television and aired in national and international markets. “We had people writing to us, saying—‘You saved my life,’” says Elaine.

The Shimberg’s gift to the breast center is their largest to St. Joseph’s in a relationship that spans more than 25 years, starting when Elaine joined the St. Joseph’s Development Council in 1982. In 1993, she joined the hospital’s board and served a two-year term as its chair, and since 1999 has also served on the hospital’s foundation board.

Numerous Tampa Bay organizations have benefited from the Shimbergs long-term commitment to the community. “Elaine and Hinks are an amazing role model of community leadership,” said SJH Foundation president Deborah Kotch. “It’s not that they give their money. They give of themselves. They set the example for their children and the community.”

A gift from Hinks and Elaine Shimberg has been recognized at the Shimberg Breast Center at St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital.

St. Joseph’s Hospital-North is in the midst of a $75 million expansion that will double the hospital’s capacity and support additional services. But the new construction was not unexpected; in fact, the design of the facility accounted for this anticipated expansion.

Shelled space allowed for the build-out of four additional operating suites with an expected completion date in September. Meanwhile, the hospital will add two more patient care floors that will provide 54 more private patient rooms per floor. The additional beds will be allocated for 48 progressive care and 60 medical-surgical beds. This work is already underway with a completion date set for the first quarter of 2020, just in time for the hospital’s 10th anniversary.

In the hospital’s first seven years of operation, it has experienced a 61% increase. “The growth rate around us is higher than the state of Florida and the nation,” explained Sara Dodds, director, St. Joseph’s Hospital-North Operations. “We are regularly running at capacity. By adding the additional operating suites and patient rooms, we will be able to meet the community’s growing needs.”

Thanks to a grant from St. Joseph’s Hospital’s Foundation’s Philanthropic Women members, our hospitals have added new tools to its team to proactively reduce the risk of hospital-acquired infections. Two new decontamination robots arriving soon at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital and St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital will use ultraviolet radiation to kill up to 99.9 percent of harmful germs and pathogens that may linger on surfaces after routine disinfection. These two units will be added to an arsenal of 5 other units at St. Joseph’s Hospital and deployed primarily in isolation rooms and surgical areas.

The disinfecting robot works by generating ultraviolet (UV) light energy that modifies the DNA or RNA structure of an infectious cell. After a hospital team member cleans a patient room using traditional methods, the remotely-operated unit is rolled in to complete the process. The device’s patented technology calculates the amount of UV light energy needed to disinfect the entire room while taking into account variables such as size, shape, and contents to deliver the precise, lethal dose of UVC needed.

A clinical trial funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that using the Tru-D SmartUVC robot to clean patient hospital rooms reduced the risk of infections due to antibiotic-resistant superbugs such as C. diff and VRE by 30 percent. This advanced germ-fighting technology is just one way St. Joseph’s Hospitals are raising the bar when it comes to the level of care provided to patients.